Jerusalem represents the unity of the Jewish people. Our sages teach that it was specifically due to our disunity during our Great Revolt against the Roman Empire that Jerusalem was lost.
Although we fought hard in 1948, the Jewish people could not succeed in holding onto Jerusalem. This serves as a lesson to those who see themselves as a vanguard faction marching ahead of the camp. Be careful not to move too far ahead of the people.
The Leḥi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) was something of an ideological vanguard in the 1940s that, although small in number, were able to see clearer than any other Jewish faction the historical necessities and political realities of their time. While most Zionists related to the Jewish people as an object with a problem (anti-semitism, assimilation, persecutions, etc.), Leḥi saw Israel as a subject with desires and as a native population fighting to free our country from British rule.
Although nearly all of Palestine’s Jewish community initially opposed them, Leḥi succeeded in eventually dragging most of the yishuv behind them into an armed struggle against England that ultimately resulted in the British leaving Palestine and the reestablishment of Hebrew independence in parts of our land.
But the liberation of Jerusalem, that which Leḥi wanted more than anything else, was still unachievable because Jerusalem can’t be freed by small vanguard movements or fragmented militias. Only a unified people’s army can succeed at freeing Jerusalem for the Jewish people. And although Leḥi and the other factions failed to hold onto Zion in 1948, the unified Israeli army was able to successfully retake the city from Jordan in 1967.
A central message of Yom Yerushalayim is that sometimes it isn’t enough to be able to see and understand what most people can’t. It’s crucial that such revolutionary thinkers remain with and of the people, and work towards advancing their political education.
